OffScreen NonViolence
by Be3
Summary: Some "missing scenes" based on ST:TOS with the ST:XI crew in mind. Spoilers! Spock-centric. Ch 4 AU; it's nu!Spock's turn to travel back in time and find his future comrades. Ch 5 McCoy's POV, not series-based.
1. Incarcerated

Disclaimer: I do not own. Period.

A/N: just some "missing scenes" from various TOS eps. Probably with too much emphasis on Spock. Some swear words included.

1. Incarcerated ("Bread and Circuses")

In the light of their impending execution, rest was an imperative he should have been able to task himself with fulfilling. Instead, he once again became a battlefield of conflicting instincts that Dr. McCoy mistook for 'emotions'. Those he could squash in a heartbeat. Being taken prisoner, divided from their leader and left with a weaker than himself ally, evolution herself demanded he stand sentry.

His cellmate sneezed.

'Think you can laser it out with a look?'

Spock glanced from the grate to the Doctor. There was no logical rationale for evolution to demand the same from McCoy, unless she'd suddenly embraced Darwinism at its most primitive and moved to culling out the least fit.

Despite McCoy's latest typically ill-timed outburst, he found he disagreed.

'My eyes do not have the ability to emit and concentrate the required energy.'

'Could have fooled me.' And here Spock was very, very tempted to interrupt. 'Listen, what I said before...'

'You do not have to apologise,' Spock said with equanimity he'd be proud of if he weren't a Vulcan.

McCoy coughed.

'Apologise, yeah. Just - forget it.'

Spock turned his head towards what he privately considered the universe's worst joke at his expense, bumping it a little on the rough-hewn flagstone.

'Either I have been spoiled by overseeing a department of humans simplifying scientific data into debatable hypotheses, or you are even less coherent than is your usual wont, but I am at a loss as to how to interpret this utterance.'

'Don't let me guess,' McCoy grumbled. 'Here; take a mat. The floor is cold. And I don't want to have to treat you for a cold you could have avoided in the first place,' he added as an afterthought.

'It smells.'

'So do we.'

'I have not, nor do I wish to, acquire the aroma of various bodily fluids expelled by the previous users of this item.'

McCoy buried his nose in the crook of his elbow, but then his hand flopped back, narrowly missing Spock's scalp.

'Goddamit, Spock! That's a moot point, and you know it.'

'Has it occurred to you, Doctor, that our position is an enviable one?' Spock asked at length. His answer was a ready snort.

'Enviable? Are you out of your Vulcan mind? Again?'

Spock narrowed his eyes. His pre-executionary calmness was slipping in the face of such blatant distrust.

'Think of it,' he looked upwards at the scowling face. In a way, he preferred the complete and unabridged McCoy to a repentant one. 'We breached, or shall have breached, the Prime Directive through no choice of ours; the natives at this point are as close to discovering the warp speed as can, or can not, be desired; the disappearance of S.S. Beagle and the fate of her crew are finally explained.'

'I'm thrilled,' lied McCoy. 'We are in a cell, about to be killed, _together_, Jim can be dead already, a Starfleet Captain betrayed his oath, and you're saying it could be worse.'

Spock wiped the spit from his eyebrow.

'There are degrees to which the Directive can be violated. For example, whatever Mr. Scott comes up with as a means to extract us from here, he will again demonstrate a starship's power to the local people. The power they will desire for themselves. And if one were to project, tentatively, the Terran mode of imperial development onto the present situation...'

'They grow larger and larger until they collapse. I doubt we shall live long enough for this one to reach its timely demise, though, so unless you propose a coup...'

'Doubtless we won't; imagine, however, an empire, consisting of a single planet, sending ships into space and meeting Federation, Klingons, perhaps Romulans.'

'Hell.'

'Indeed. A volatile combination, and one that Starfleet command has to be warned against as soon as possible; we do not know what information Merrick has betrayed to them.'

McCoy stood up, walked to the grate and tried, half-heartedly, to 'test the strength of the door'. When it didn't budge, he walked back and threw Spock a mat from the pile.

'Come on. What's some urine compared to a galactic war?'


	2. Instructor

A/N: aaaaand… Alternative Universe! Personally I like happy ends, and would like more fics about Spock taking care of the crew, not only of the captain.

Warning: botanical jargon.

2. Instructor ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")

He was stalling.

McCoy emerged from the ward, hissing 'addle-brained superman' under his breath. He seemed unsurprised to see the Vulcan hovering near the entrance. It bothered Spock somehow that he had been expected, not waited for.

'Alive and kicking,' McCoy muttered with distaste.

'Is Mr. Mitchell fit for duty?' Sometimes the Doctor could be incomprehensibly vague. (It didn't matter if Kirk were the patient. There were no clear-cut solutions to any of Kirk's problems. And so far, most of them were Spock's to look for.)

'No, and don't you start on superstitions. I'm not clearing him. He's too...' McCoy waved his hands, to describe indescribable.

'Understood, I suppose. May I visit?'

McCoy made a valiant effort to live up to his reputation of an unfortunately honest man.

'I don't know what happened to him, I can't guarantee it's not infectious, so yes, go ahead if you're suicidal.'

'I have been told that humility is an admirable human trait, and although I have yet to see a scientifically consistent illustration of this behaviour, your admission goes a long way towards persuading me that it is truly an asset while conversing with your creed. Let me pass.'

McCoy, to his credit, did not rise for the bait to defend his 'creed' (the ultimate hypocrisy of such an attempt was glaringly obvious in that they had James T. Kirk for a captain, and a third-in-command officer with delusions of godhood right behind the door.) He harrumphed and sidled away, reminding Spock of a busy scarab beetle. Frowning slightly at this humanly frivolous thought, he went to talk with Mr. Gary Mitchell.

The man reclined upon a biobed, silver eyes half-lidded.

'To what do I owe the pleasure?'

'I have an offer you might find interesting.'

'Do you, now? As in, you're not going to kill me first chance you get?'

'Mr. Mitchell, what do you know about the Death of Latin?'

The answering grin told him the evasion was appreciated. However, unlike scarab beetles, Spock knew his former students fairly well, and his gamble paid.

'Nothing. I'm an engineer, not a historian.'

'The problem is not related to history, traditionally perceived; perhaps if it had been more aptly named the question would not arise at all.

'As you undoubtedly know from your high-school studies, the family of natural sciences includes a potent branch concerning living organisms.

'Biology.'

'The very same. Its development was crowned by the establishment of _systema_ _naturae_, an ostensibly all-encompassing 'system', including each and every known living organism and assigning it the proper place among others, based on its evolutionary advancement. It was generally believed that all of them descended from a single ancestor, which is as may be. The discipline, called systematics, had been thrown into chaos shortly after the space flights began.'

'You mean, when they discovered extra-terrestrial lifeforms?'

'Precisely. The concept of infinite diversity in infinite combinations proved too much for the Earth-oriented _systema naturae_; moreover, the language used for inventing new names for 'species' (another term not universally applicable to distinct kinds of living things found in space), the language itself proved inadequate for the task. There were not enough words.'

'And so Latin died?' Mitchell hazarded. Spock inhaled deeply, containing his enthusiasm. He used to envy his military-minded colleagues who did not invest too much into the philosophical aspects of their work; it was as if an abyss yawned before him, and now he shared it with someone who could, hopefully, gauge its depth and not go irreversibly mad.

He felt detached, weightless, unholy exhilaration.

'It did not 'die' as much as fall from use. A common enough happenstance. I, on the other hand, should like to address a more fundamental question.'

He pinned the mutinous third-in-command to the garish pillow with a glare, noting in some unoccupied part of his mind the rigidity of the boy's pale features. He thought of Pike; he couldn't bother himself to fathom why.

'The question of origin.'

Mitchell gulped.

'If I... I take it that... whether we all share a single ancestor?'

'Very good,' Spock settled back into his Starfleet-issue XO persona.

'And you want me to - to look it up?' His opponent's voice broke unbelievingly.

'You have the faculties to do it.'

'I'm not a computer!'

'I never implied you are. This is a one-in-a-lifetime challenge, Mr. Mitchell. Will you accept it?'

The silence stretched, and he wanted to lick his lips, knowing he couldn't afford it. Finally:

'I might need a secretary,' the demigod mused aloud.

'I have a responsibility to Starfleet,' Spock declared in his best lecturing voice, the one everybody he ever tutored were conditioned to obey unquestioningly. And raised an eyebrow.

Mitchell blinked.

And then roared with spine-unbending laughter. Spock heard a note of relieved hysteria in it but refrained from commenting. He couldn't, after all, claim deep insight into the psyche of _Homo sapiens_.

'Sorry, Mr. Spock. That was completely uncalled for,' the other gasped at last.

'So it was. What is your answer?'

'I'll think about it. Botany is dull, far as I know.'

''Botany' _sensu stricto_ is not only dull, Mr. Mitchell, it is _dead_.'

'Man, it's all so sudden.' He giggled.

'I shall leave you to your ruminations, then.'

'Thank you.'

Spock nodded and exited, holding himself even straighter than required by regulations, to be promptly pounced upon by the CMO.

'Well, Mr. Vulcan?'

'The evidence appears to be conclusive, Doctor.'

His forehead and both sides of his face, especially near the bases of his ears, felt cold for whatever reason. McCoy smirked.

'You're off duty, aren't ya? I could use a spare pair of hands. Never thought there's more to inventory on a starship than in a goddamn clinic.'

'Given that the crew's health and well-being depend, however marginally, on your being able to locate the necessary supplies with optimal speed and efficiency, and that I have no pressing engagements requiring my presence elsewhere, I shall, of course, comply with your request.'

By the time he finished the sentence, the Doctor had already disappeared from waist up in one of his storage cabinets, having turned around faster than he'd said 'given'.

Inexplicably, it didn't seem presumptuous on his part.


	3. Inventive, or Count Her Atoms, Captain

A/N: another AU, 'City on the Edge of Forever.' Mostly Kirk's POW

Count her Atoms, Captain

1.

'Captain, what you ask of me, would violate 304 Starfleet instructions, 605 guidelines and approximately 810 amendments...'

'Approximately, Mr. Spock?' Kirk asked, his neck reddening.

'Approximately, Captain, since I have never before had an occasion to 'work the kinks out of' a wilful breach of temporal continuity.'

Kirk sat on his fists. Being quoted verbatim by his First officer generally meant either careful teasing or abject disbelief, but he could swear he heard a note of jaw-cramping fury. _The_ First Officer, who, in another life, had jumped after an insane enemy through a black hole to protect the past, and ended up bending it to his own liking.

'I love her,' he grated out. His throat worked.

Spock inclined his head to shadow the paleness of his face.

'It is not exactly the Kobayashi Maru, Jim.'

'There has to be a way. Would you... I know I would, but would you... do it if you were not a Starfleet officer?'

'Are you implying dereliction of duty?'

Kirk, shoulders hunched, glared rather pointedly at the hideous contraption that staunchly defied most of its creator's expectations. The bulbs still blinked, the transistors still hummed.

'I am Vulcan. I am a subject of the Federation of Planets.'

Rehearsed and sincere. The essential Spock.

'But Vulcan is no more,' he whispered, afraid to look up. 'The rules changed.'

Spock toyed with a wire, the texture still alien even after weeks of work; lifelong habits.

'Have you... Spock, have you thought about our part in this? We aren't only stopping McCoy, you know. We walk, we breathe, we eat. We occupy someone's place, and we matter. And they matter, Spock. What if we have already changed the future?'

'Then we'd be transferred back.'

Kirk snorted.

'If... if I were certain,' Spock began timidly, 'if I could prove that the atoms currently constituting Ms. Keeler,' he made an apologetic sound about the androidness of the description, 'can be retracted from their, ah, future positions without irreversible collateral damage, then...'

Spock stood up, hoarse from sheer concentration. He wouldn't acknowledge a warp theory seminar in this state, not that any sane warp theory seminar would dare to commence. It was easy to imagine that the world were a theatre, and everybody but Spock spectators. There had to be a saying to that effect, Kirk suspected.

'And the energy, too; besides that of the things the elements would be parts of, and we have no way of evaluating. All the things and reactions they ever participated in.'

The notion seemed to give Spock a migraine, or it had to, based on what it did to Kirk. The Vulcan moved to the thinkable.

'The bioelectricity, the mechanics of each and every of her movements, the chemical reactions, the impact of her actions... of her parasites, to which we would not be immune... you can probably provide data on her condition...'

Spock went so far as to wave a hand in the other man's direction. The gesture was painfully unpractised.

If there were no ones and zeroes skittering across his dilated pupils, Kirk blamed it on his own imperfect vision.

'I assure you, my data would prove quite limited,' he retorted.

'This is, of course, a crude simplification... I could... perhaps... agree to her existence in our time. You understand, Jim, that nothing can be destroyed or created anew.'

'It is now the 1930-s,' Kirk frowned. An absent smirk twisted his mouth when he processed Spock's atypically convoluted phrasing. 'Where could we find her atoms, Mr. Spock?'

Spock's eyes came into focus again.

'She is a living person, Jim. How can I predict the consequences of introducing her into, to put it simply, our time? What if she doesn't want it?'

There was a beat of silence, just a second for the universe to get her bearings.

'You can't, and she will,' Kirk shrugged the awed feeling off. 'Where did they, er, bury her?'

From a crash course on decomposition, delivered with the same nerve-sawing intensity, to a discussion about land-filling (because Kirk recalled land-filling playing a significant role in

New-York's development) to speculations on the Guardian's possible decision...

'It can't decide anything, it's a machine!'

'Jim.'

'Oh, yeah, well.'

...they talked and talked and talked, and in the end there still had been no plan.

Kirk was frustrated and angry. His only consolation would have to be Spock's tentative agreement that saving Edith Keeler would be the right thing to do. He closed his eyes; even when he'd been a student in the Starfleet Academy, he rarely had to study so hard. A random thought popped up in his head.

'I used to think chemistry was, like, a total waste of time.'

'Oh,' Spock said distractedly. He must have been done in, poor guy. 'I have no doubt of that,' he added in a minute.

A pillow thumped against some piece of furniture and was picked up, brushed, and respectfully returned.

'You missed.'

'Did I really? Night, Spock.'

'Good night, Jim.'

2.

Meanwhile, Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, completely oblivious of the weight of the world resting on his narrow shoulders, was being settled for the night.

A suspicion that this was all real wormed itself into his mind when he'd been shown the lavatory and had to deduce several mediaevally unhygienic facts for himself.

Whether this was Earth or not (and did it boggle the mind), the civilisation was not as advanced as any they'd visited.

He was not at all aware how he'd gotten there. Moreover, he was not sure he could come back to the Enterprise. Ergo, he had to adapt to this new environment.

_Stuck for the rest of his life._

McCoy swallowed. There was nothing familiar, no constant he could rely upon, except the God he believed in, and the Prime Directive to keep him on his toes.

And he didn't remember a single thing about the age save for some technicalities of the Eugenic wars.

_Which had not yet been fought._

Someone tapped on the door.

'Come in,' he rasped. It was the last thing he wanted to say.

'I just came by to see if you need anything,' Ms. Keeler stayed on the threshold.

'You are very kind. Please come in, it's your home.'

'Oh, it's nothing. You seemed so alone. Do you have any relatives or friends?'

'I'm afraid I don't know anybody around here.'

She smiled a tentative and encouraging smile he was enamoured with.

'Tell me about yourself. I'll see what I can do.'

In the end, he told her more than he should, though he took pains to couch the truth in metaphors. She had joked, and cried a little, and proclaimed him a budding talent.

'It's so rare to meet a man so fond and knowledgeable of classics.'

McCoy coughed. There had been columns before the city sprang up on him. They reminded him of Ancient Greece (surely _that_ was ancient enough.) He'd be nerve-pinched into the twenty-third century if the hobgoblin heard the 'has the regenerative abilities of the Lernaean hydra' part.

'And he's always right, to boot!'

'If you're always right, you are either Cassandra or Aristotle,' she said in a grown-up voice.

'No, thank you, I think I'll pass.'

They chattered a bit more, and then she went her way, and he went to bed with a lighter heart.

3.

'Well, if anything goes south, Scotty will do his part.'

'Seeing as he has not found us yet, it seems unlikely.'

'I didn't say he _can_ do it.'

'Indeed.'

Kirk dashed a hand through his hair. This was the most important date in written history. Too bad he wouldn't be able to tell his grandchildren how he'd rent their grandmother from her old-fashioned New York.

'Am I pretty, or am I pretty?'

'While your vocabulary has _seemed_ to improve infinitesimally...'

'I'm as awesome as ever. Thanks, bro.'

'Jim.'

He stopped.

'If we are unable to save her, do not think you are responsible for her death.'

An ugly grimace distorted Kirk's features, but he forced himself into honesty.

'I'll do my best.'

They set off.

4.

'Jim!'

'Bones! I'm coming! Stay here. Do not move from the spot.'

'Why...' But he was already across the street.

'Bones! Have you done anything?'

'What do you mean, done anything?'

'Anything timeline-changing, like saving a life, you know?'

'I haven't - what are you talking about? This is Earth?'

'Captain!'

He turned - there was a car - Bones lurched to help - he caught him across the chest - Spock pushed them both forward - they fell on the girl's body - there was an explosion -

'Spock to Enterprise. Enterprise, come in. Come in this instant!'

Kirk saw Scotty's round eyes, Uhura's pinched face, Bones's back - Bones was leaning over someone, Spock's scorched tunic, and closed his eyes. _That was some blast. That was some blast._

'...to beam up. Have a medical team stand by.'

'...gizing.'

5.

He was in Sickbay. Spock was sitting in a chair absolutely motionlessly, and the most beautiful woman ever rested under a stasis field on a biobed nearest to the wall.

'Ow.'

'Captain,' Spock nodded.

'Are we still here?'

Up went the eyebrow.

'Yes, Jim, we are. The Guardian confirmed that no changes had been made. There had been a terrorist attack half an hour after we departed. Water?'

'Yes, please. How did you do it?'

Spock had the grace to tinge a lovely pea green.

'I, unlike someone I know, did not consider chemistry a 'total waste of time'. And might I remind you, Captain, that there is no such thing as a no-win situation.'

And truly, there wasn't.


	4. In the Past 1: the dreams unfold

Disclaimer: nothing of the world belongs to me. The current chapter's title is taken from Tolkien's 'the dreams of trees unfold', LOTR, the song of the ents.

**A/N**: so this is a collection of disjointed AU one-shots about nu!Spock traveling back in time like Spock Prime had done before that, and finding his future friends and colleagues. The reason to his pilgrimage remains unclear to me, which is why I can not disclose it o you . Each one of them begins with Spock beaming down…

The dreams unfold.

He came to himself, impossibly standing upright, the nictitating membranes dragging across his eyeballs. They used to retreat faster. Perhaps, in his old age the combined effects of several debilitating conditions were making themselves known.

A kid was staring at him, holding himself completely still. He took his time, just staying there, watching the little human. The boy's hands, the front of his coveralls, and even his round cheeks looked like he had climbed a leaking cistern of oil, which might well have been the case. His pulse was beating in terror against the frayed t-shirt, but bravery glittered in the five-year-old's curious eyes. His black hair was windswept and grayish with dust.

There could be no mistake. In that moment, he gave in and acknowledged the existence of one's heart's cockles. Surely McCoy would not divine his thoughts from another universe? If not, he would never live this down, if only because he would betray himself seeing his old friend.

But even this seditious thought was not enough to raise his nemesis from his slumber...

The newcomer gradually lowered himself to the ground. The ungraceful movement tugged at his tendons. His bones ached, but he couldn't afford to frighten the boy off.

'Who're you?'

'I am called Spock.' And then, because it had become a dear tradition since the Captain first introduced him in this manner, stunning his captors into 'a tribunal and a half', 'I am Spock of Vulcan.'

The sun hung just above the hills; clearly the boy would have to run home soon.

'Cool,' the boy said. 'I'm Monty.'

'I am honoured to make your acquaintance.'

Monty squinted at him, but the stranger appeared dead serious. They sat there for some time, while their shadows lengthened and the wind picked up, howling in the narrow alleys.

'You're cold,' observed the child.

'Indeed I am. Is it winter already?'

'Winter, no! It's summer, actually.' Monty peered at the alien with distrust he often felt but was usually too well-mannered to show when the grown-ups mollycoddled him.

Spock nodded. 'I have forgotten how fast the temperature drops in the evenings at this latitude.'

'Aberdeen,' the boy drawled sagely. 'Latitude' had his eyes growing round and his lips moving silently. Spock rather suspected that Aberdeen would account for more than its fair share for years to come. Then, a certain Ensign would reassign the championship to his own motherland. Spock remembered seeing a list of things the Chief Engineer managed to re-claim as Scottish, and another one of things he was going to fight for tooth and nail, though obviously without any hope to win.

'Would you show me around? I regret I have not been to your country before.' He did regret it.

Monty shrugged, scraped his neck in obvious embarrassment and finally blurted that he had to be home by seven and that he'd be 'delighted' (_and take that, Vulcan_, Spock read on his face, and had to bite back a smile) to bring a guest such as he.

'How can I refuse such an invitation?'

They set off, Spock's tiredness forgotten in the invigorating breeze.

'I'm going to be a technician,' Monty boasted, prompting their conversation into familiar straits, mostly for the other's comfort. The decision was a fresh one, not even a day old; tomorrow he would again want to become a cameraman 'cause that was really fun and Mom said he got what it takes. But today he was all for machines and explosions and weird stuff like that, and he _had_ to help Spock out. Adults were lost when left on their own, and talking was something they were hopeless (another word he learned in his English class) at.

'You will be a good one,' his guest agreed.

Monty kicked an acorn off the sidewalk, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and tried to walk like techs in the movies - elbows sticking out, bouncing on his feet, chin up.

But something was missing, and to his dismay he realized he wouldn't be able to do it with gaps between his teeth so unfairly wide.

Just then, the Vulcan began to whistle.


	5. Intrigues, Intrigues

A/N: upon their return from the five-year-long mission, the crew of the _Enterprise_ are treated to a party. Not everyone invited knows each other well…

I also presume that the _Intrepid_ was destroyed in the Battle of Vulcan, though I confess I didn't take time to check it out.

Also, there is a quote from 'The Journey to Babel'.

Disclaimer: may the rights belong to the owner, which I am not.

'The Ambassador?'

It was unlike Jim to not introduce a friend fully. McCoy was fairly sure they were friends from the way Jim brightened at the sight of the old Vulcan, though why he would then run off, stranding him with a stranger? The doctor fought awkwardness.

The Vulcan nodded, naturally calm and composed. Apparently, McCoy's name was familiar to him. Either that, or the overcurious creatures learned politeness late in their lifetimes, and did not stare at people they were just introduced to. Well.

Or maybe his indifference indicated an insight deeper than McCoy would be comfortable with. Jimmy dear could have bared his soul to this one (there was a precedent, after all); privacy was an overrated concept with Kirk since he'd overheard Uhura about Klingons decimated by Nero. Who knew what knowledge the shrewd gaze implied?

'The Ambassador to _where_?'

'I am afraid it is but a nickname Jim seemed fit to give me. I do not represent any office right now.'

McCoy's paranoia subsided slightly.

'A fancy one.' He groped for a subject to discuss. 'Do you find the reception agreeable?'

The Ambassador hummed. Around them, the Welcome Back Party was in full swing - pleasantly muted lights, laughter, singing, even some betting on what they'd find on their second (shudder) mission.

'Yes, I do believe I like it.'

He choked. The Vulcan indicated a spot nearer to refreshments.

'Mint Julep?'

'I'll _kill_ him,' McCoy promised the Universe at large. 'What else has he blabbered about me?'

'The Captain has only mentioned you being a valuable asset and an invaluable friend. My suggestion was based on pure observation.'

He felt shamed and vaguely annoyed. One Spock was enough. _Get a grip, McCoy,_ he chided himself. _So she couldn't come. Happens to everyone. You'll see her in a day_.

'I didn't think there'd be so many of you in Frisco, with the Colony and all.'

_Tiptoeing around aliens is in my job description. I am on _vacation_._

'A new vessel will be launched shortly. 'Intrepid-A', to honour the original one and to demonstrate our people capable of contributing to the Federation's rebuilding.'

The voice was even, but he hadn't served under an even-voiced volcano for five years and remained completely ignorant of the race's expressions.

'But you disapprove?'

The Ambassador's eyes softened at his perceptiveness. 'I have enlisted as a Science Officer. Possibly my experience will be of use; I have travelled much in my time.'

The peaceful moment was interrupted by the Vulcan McCoy knew best, looking a bit frantic to his trained eye.

'The Captain?'

'Safe,' Spock curtly returned. His eyes searched the countenance of the other non-human.

'You two know each other?'

'Hardly.'

'To an extent.'

The pause was growing more uncomfortable by the second. He peered at the other table, where Pike was being lauded for his fortuitous recruiting success.

'Gotta kidnap the man 'till they drink the health outta him.'

'Doctor, that is an actionable offence,' Spock retorted, not missing a beat.

'Take the Enterprise,' advised The Ambassador in the same while.

'The Enterprise! Jim will have my hide.'

Twin sets of brown eyes, one twinkling merrily and the other mildly disbelieving, stared at him from the same height. No wonder he had trouble telling hobgoblins apart - just look at these two!

'It is an idiom,' the old hobgoblin explained.

'I aw aware of that,' his young clone dryly stated. 'A simple, illogical euphemistic expression.'

'Well, my friend,' and wasn't it just priceless to watch Spock's discomfiture over being called one in front of a Vulcan elder, 'well, my friend, care to find it out firsthand?'

Spock cast The Ambassador a defensive glare. There was no real heat behind it, though. Figures, with so few of them left, they'd try not to stand on each other's toes. McCoy could certainly live with that.

And the brave Fleeters endeavoured to rescue their once-commanding officer from his gaggle of admirers.

'It does seem unavoidable,' remarked the one who stayed at the window. Half across the hall, Sarek saluted him with his wineglass.


	6. Impulsive

He was discussing mission reports with the Captain, who had only just returned to the land of the wakeful, if not sober.

'Chekov shoulda cut on drinking,' Kirk frowned in a big-brotherly fashion, absolutely insincere. Spock scrolled down the list of reports on his own PADD and opened the one in question.

'I suppose by 'downing the shot' the Ensign means 'kicking down an armed adversary', Captain. I personally monitored his alcohol intake.'

Kirk whistled. 'Kid's no lightweight. Only needs a new dictionary. What I can't understand, Mr. First Officer, is why didn't you call me?'

'You were there.'

'I was? I don't remember.'

Spock serenely nodded.

'Right under the table. Mr. Scott was quick to recognize its strategic significance and organized the defense.'

'But what was I _doing _there?'

'Nothing, as you relinquished your tenuous hold on consciousness 2.4 minutes after asking me if I were a Scorpio, a Sagittarius, or both.'

'You don't have to tell,' Kirk waved dismissively. The fog in his mind was almost visibly beginning to dissipate. Spock was grateful there were no sound effects.

'Thank you, Captain. Would you like me to summarize the following events?'

Kirk cringed.

'Let me guess. The Commodore arrived, and we were arrested, and they will –have? – stripped me of my Captain's bars.'

'Not exactly, sir.'

'But this is the Brig, isn't it?'

'Yes, Jim, it is.'

'And we are here.'

'You are here. I am visiting.'

'Oh. Okay. Umm… Am I still Captain? If yes, summarize. If no, I don't want to know about it.'

'After Lieutenant Uhura overheard Mr. Darvin muttering obscenities in Klingon and saw to his detainment, the Klingons attempted to retrieve their spy. They did not succeed.'

'You guys stopped them!'

Spock hesitated.

'You did, didn't you?' Kirk asked in a small voice.

'Yes, Captain. As the other crewmembers on leave were otherwise engaged…' Spock swallowed his apprehension at his commanding officer's glee at the lame pun, 'I was the only one free to counter-attack.'

'You're enough,' Kirk generously allowed.

'At this moment, the Station is resuming its regular work, having enlisted Mr. Jones's help to collect the tribbles, and the tribbles's one to question the Klingons –'

'Neat. Wait, do they get paid?'

'And we are en route to Omicron Ceti III,' hastened Spock, not liking where Captain's line of thought went.

There was a beat of blessed silence.

'So I am in the brig of – of the _Enterprise_?'

'Indeed.'

'For drunk in disorderly right there along with you all?'

'For your hangover to have time to recede,' Spock chided, giving the cranky bleary-eyed child – for Jim Kirk could transform into one with frustrating ease, - a bottle of water. Duty had a knack of placing him in the most uncomfortable situations.

'I'm still pretty out there,' Kirk confessed, flopping back on the cot and cringing. 'Why aren't you on the Bridge?'

'I have to see to your welfare,' was there a plaintive note in his voice? Yes. Did he regret it? No. Complaint was logical and even warranted, but regret wasn't.

'Why?' the Captain, however 'out there', still retained his intuition and now was staring an answer out of his suddenly reticent XO.

'I was told of your dislike of confinement,' was the careful rejoinder. If McCoy breathed a word that he'd _asked_ for the task of briefing Captain himself, impulsive fool that he was, he'd have to nerve-pinch the Doctor and transport to a Klingon ship. There were precedents.

But Kirk only nodded, hazily, stretched and was asleep again in a minute. Impossible human. Spock sat back on the floor, taking both datapadds to sketch a believable entry for the Captain's log.


	7. Inhuman

A/N: this is a MS from "All Our Yesterdays". For those who didn't see the 'previous' ep, it was supposed to be 'Trouble with Tribbles'.

_Five thousand years in the past._

He laughed in jubilation.

McCoy's fist caught him in the chest. Zarabeth backed away, eyes wide.

'Doctor? Is this a seizure, or are you simply your charming self? My lady, you need not be afraid of me.'

There was one matter he could concentrate on. _No woman could compete_.

'Spock! Wake up, man! We've gotta come back.' McCoy hissed throatily.

'What for? We have just set out. A whole world to explore, and perhaps, if Time permits, our records will survive and be retrieved.'

'And perhaps, if they are retrieved, you will have busted your beloved Directive to a paragraph!'

'It is entirely possible.'

'Well hell, man, what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here! I'm sorry, Miss,' he turned to their saviour, 'we cannot stay. Spock here is in love with another.'

Zarabeth was looking at him like Beauty herself - alone in perfection, aching for a loving heart. He kissed her hand reverently, and closed his eyes. _No beauty could compete_. His was a case of terminal loyalty.

A crime is a crime is a crime, but if one agrees to take full responsibility for his actions, than -

'Come on!' His sleeve was yanked. 'We must get out!'

Spock ground his teeth - this newfound freedom of self was highly distracting - and applied misdirection, which incidentally was also the truth.

'I am thinking.'

McCoy subsided. Spock heard faintly, his attention to outward stimuli waning: 'Forgive us. We are bound by duty.'

'And by your souls.' _But no soul could compete_.

There it was. A faint twang he had overlooked at first, unmistakable, growing stronger by the breath. A note in the symphony of life that sang in his blood, that sang _Vulcan_, that sang _home_. It was richer than he recalled, more proud than emeralds in queens' crowns, and more savage than all suns they'd passed.

His only desire, ambition, obligation, his _everything_ would be to ensure that note sing away in the millennia to come. On the other pan of the scales lay two mortal lives and a Code he'd lived by since enlisting in Starfleet.

The one wrought by Federation to restrict Federation's rights and to enforce Federation's laws.

The one with many loopholes, but with a core of steel: the Prime Directive, as written by Vulcans. No other species was allowed to change that chapter in any way save translating it into their own language. Even Terrans did not dispute that - they had, initially, but were easily outmatched in logic.

The one Code he would defile by finding a way to save billions of his compatriots.

With an effort he dimly wondered at being capable of, Spock wrenched himself to what passed for the present. McCoy, feverish and sweating, was hugging the girl and murmuring words of encouragement into her ears. There was no way to tell how much time has passed, even his own sense of it was confused, probably by their passage. Their physiology could have passed the point of no return. Spock discarded the thought as an unproductive one. It was logical within the situation's parameters.

'You will need warm clothes to not get frostbite.'

McCoy blinked. His face wrinkled in puzzlement. Illogical, considering the amount of conversations they had led; one would assume the Doctor would have no difficulty understanding the simple observation. Spock shrugged, using a human gesture to placate a human. McCoy's teeth clanked shut. That meant he did not object. There were signs of terror on his face that Spock did not have, or feel compelled to search, an explanation for.

Spock turned his gaze to the woman. She stared back at him, and he saw in her eyes a will that would, perhaps, in other circumstances make her an acceptable wife for him. 'You would grace any Vulcan abode,' he told her, because she would have, and because he was not absolutely without compassion.

In five minutes, they went outside to find the way back to their time and their ship, and he told himself the pellets of ice on his face were just that.


End file.
